“You jumped on a charging bull’s back?” he asked incredulously. I found his disbelief both highly offensive and understandable. A raging bracku bull was not something to be trifled with, let alone attempted to be ridden like an obedient shuldu.
“Yes, I did,” I asserted, eyes narrowing. “I had no other choice. It was a tenth of a span from her. I had to act.”
“Because she’s your fiancée?”
“No. She wasn’t my fiancée then.”
And she isn’t now, either…
“She was a stranger to you.”
“Yes.”
Warden Tenn studied me, then smiled.
“That’s twice now, Zohro, that you’ve gone and saved someone out of the goodness of your heart.”
“I didn’t save you out of the goodness of my heart,” I snapped. “It is merely that I find you mostly tolerable. And if you’d died after that blasted beam fell on your head, then they would have replaced you with someone else. And I have no interest in getting used to some idiotic new warden when I am already used to you.”
Warden Tenn snorted.
“Charming, Zohro. Truly. Is this how you won Jolene’s affections and got her to agree to be your bride?” He added an unflattering hiss to his voice in an apparent imitation of me. “I couldn’t let you get gored by a bracku, Jolene, because then I’d have to find some other idiotic human woman to marry.”
“No,” I said sharply. “I won’t find some other human woman to marry. When Jolene leaves, I will withdraw from the bridal program.”
Warden Tenn’s eyebrows stitched together, then shot up.
“I see,” he said. “And who told you she is leaving?”
I opened my mouth to say,She did.
But she hadn’t. Not yet, anyway.
“Well, she will,” I said. “I told her about my conviction, and…”
“And?”
“And she cried.”
Warden Tenn made a sympathetically pained face. As if he, too, was intimately familiar with the helpless torment of watching a human woman cry and not knowing what the blazes to do about it.
“Well, I suppose things can only improve from here.”
“Improve?” I asked him flatly. I did not see how my life would be improved when she was gone.
“Sometimes they just need a good cry,” Warden Tenn said with a nonchalant flick of his tail. “And some sleep. Did you offer her a snack? That helps, too. Or, you can offer to let them hit you. You just have to make sure they don’t hurt their knuckles in the process.”
“I gave her my own blasted knife and told her to use it on me!” I exclaimed. “She did not seem to want to.”
Warden Tenn looked ridiculously pleased by this.
“That must be a good sign!” he said jovially. “Zohro, I owe you my life. You are one of the most competent men I’ve ever met, both when it comes to medicine and how you run your ranch. But I must also tell you that you are infinitely irritating. Very stab-able.”
“Excuse me?”
“The fact that Jolene didn’t stab you when given the chance must mean that she already likes you more than most!” He grinned widely and slapped me on the back. “And if she was willing to marry you once, she may yet be convinced again.”
“She’s pregnant and due to give birth soon,” I hissed, slapping his hand away. “This isn’t a question of simply making her like me more. She’s prioritizing her child’s safety.” I thought of her bag. So lovingly packed for her baby and empty of things for herself. “She would do anything for her daughter.”
